


Picture Us Found

by V (deepsix)



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-07-07
Updated: 2003-07-07
Packaged: 2017-10-04 19:25:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/33280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deepsix/pseuds/V
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Remus was a man of action.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Picture Us Found

Remus only said the words once, just to see that he could. It burned his throat, like smoke in his windpipe, but the words did come.

He doesn't like to think about them.

The house smells the way Sirius did, like must and ash and a breath of air you weren't expecting. Not fresh, but clean.

But the magic went with Sirius, the last of the line, and there isn't much for Remus to do to keep it from going to hell. He can keep it together if he tries, but Grimmauld Place was never going to be paradise.

*

The Order still uses the place, because they think that if he's living there, it can't be such a problem. But the house is worse now than when they started, but only Remus can see the scorch marks on the walls and on the floors, staining the place black as soot. There are no ashes.

You can burn a name from a tapestry, but it takes more to erase a whole life.

Remus thinks someone may have succeeded, because this doesn't feel any different.

*

Molly screamed one morning, because she thought he couldn't hear, as if a death would rob him of his senses.

"He's in _mourning_," she said, her voice shrill, and he did not know who she was addressing. He did not have the heart to correct her, because he was sure that if he had one, he would have been crying.

*

The house stays quiet, even after he pulls the curtain. He wants to say: "wake _up_," but he never felt the same venom towards Sirius's mother as Sirius himself had.

He leaves it shut mostly, just in case, but she never stirs. It's as if she's forgotten the trespasses committed under her roof, and every word she ever spoke against him-- as if, maybe, when Sirius was wiped from his memory, so Remus was from hers.

It would make sense, Remus thinks, but not much does anymore.

*

He lives in a house that's missing its spark, though it's nothing more than four walls and a roof, and a silenced, screaming voice, boxing him into a reality he'd like to escape.

Remus goes back anyway, because not that long ago, it used to fit.

You only get one chance to make it work, and he's had his.


End file.
